


No Order in the Wasteland

by championofnone



Series: Hard Choices & Lifelong Consequences [3]
Category: Fallout 4
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-05-05 16:14:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5381723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/championofnone/pseuds/championofnone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erin Brawley, sole survivor of Vault 111, decides the only thing that stands a chance at keeping herself alive is spite. </p><p>She isn't wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Outside into the Waste

**Author's Note:**

> Tags and characters likely to change as everything progresses :)

It had started as a habit when she was young, this thing of hers where she’d excitedly grab someone’s hand, uncaring of who. Often it was because she wanted to show someone something she found, but it was also her way of showing affection when she felt it was needed.

Her mother scolded her for this countless times, as this was not the way a lady was supposed to act, but her mother’s lectures never stopped Erin from doing anything in her life. 

She’d known Nate for a few months before it happened the first time, and she hastily withdrew her hand, wondering if she could get the bandanna off of her head and around her cheeks to cover her blush without him noticing. He stared at her for a moment, curious, before smiling and taking her hand back. 

‘ _It’s alright_ ,’ he’d said, ‘ _I don’t mind in the least_.’ 

They were fourteen, and she knew then they’d be something to make it to forever. Her mother scolded her, told her she couldn’t know, that it wasn’t an ideal she should hold herself to - it was 2064 for goodness’ sake, and she shouldn’t believe in fairy tales, but Erin heard none of it.

They married in 2070, 20 years old and both headed into the army, sharing a smile as she walked down the aisle towards him. They were the only ones that knew she was wearing combat boots under the dress her mother forced her into.

The army put her through law school, and her brain fast tracked her through courses, graduating exceptionally early at 24, although she had her two-year degree before starting. She could talk anyone into anything, and with as poorly as political negotiations were going, it was a skill in high demand. 

Nate got shipped out the day Erin got the paperwork saying they were approved to start the last phase of the in-vitro process; he was so excited his squad had to drag him onto the bus, and even then he hung out the window like a retriever puppy waving at her, swearing to write, and that she best update him every step of the way. Her sister, already a mother of three, had volunteered to be their surrogate since it was impossible for Erin.

The months flew by, and the mailbox had never seen such use in its life before. Two days before Shaun was to be born, Nate surprised her by managing to get leave - she didn’t bother to ask how, all she wanted was her husband to be around when their son was born. 

On October 23, 2076, Shaun Prewitt-Brawley was born, and they couldn’t have been happier. Erin couldn’t let go of Nate’s hand as she cradled their son in her other.

The year passed quickly, Nate finding a job at a recruitment office - turns out he wasn’t all that good with guns, but he was great with people - and Erin had signed onto a firm to start at after Halloween. They wanted to change this world, and they were determined to do it together.

They hadn’t planned on hearing Codsworth’s voice becoming worried, or hearing true fear in the voice of their trusty local news anchor, on Shaun’s first birthday. Erin grabbed Nate’s hand as the air raid siren began to blare, the piercing noise shocking them out of their surprise. She ran as hard as she could, desperate to get her family into the vault they’d just signed up for a few hours ago. If Nate was hard pressed by her pace, he didn’t say a word.

They reached the platform just in time as Nate looked at her with fear, a bright orange mushroom cloud blooming too close for comfort behind him, and the shockwaves nearly sent her stumbling back as the vault door began to lower. Erin wrapped an arm around Nate’s waist to steady them both and talked lowly to Shaun, telling herself it was her son she was trying to comfort. 

Nate didn’t bother reminding her this wasn’t something where comfort could be found, but he tightened his arm around her shoulder anyway. He felt he needed to try. 

Being in vault 111 was a blur, the people of Sanctuary Hills shell-shocked at what just happened, Erin and Nate included, and they’d been run through drills of this exact situation before. She slipped on the jumpsuit and gave Nate and Shaun a final kiss each before entering the chamber the doctor directed her to. 

She’d never had a decontamination chamber be so cold before. 

Erin awoke to screams what felt like a few minutes later. She shook her head, trying to clear the fog away from her mind as she looked across and saw Nate trying to peer down the hall from his pod before noticing she was awake as well. Some of the screaming abruptly stopped as a man and a second person in a hazard suit came down, stopping in front of Nate and Shaun. ‘ _Good_ ,’ she thought, ‘ _help them. Get them out first_.’ 

She’d hate herself for a long time afterwards for thinking that.

Nate struggled against the intruders as Erin tried to pound on the door, but she was so cold she could barely move, only managing to mumble his name. But he knew, of _course_ he knew - he looked at her, panicked and afraid but determined as ever as he refused to give Shaun up, an _I love you_  on the edge of his lips before - 

She couldn’t look away from the small bullet hole in her husband’s forehead, not even as her son screamed and cried in the arms of the hazard-suited person. 

‘ _At least we still have the back-up_ ,’ sneered the man as he walked away, slamming the button to refresh her cryogenic stasis.

She didn’t know how long it was since she was last above ground as she ran from the vault. She’d been brought to her knees in front of Nate, slipping off his wedding ring to add it to his dog tags that she’d worn since he’d come home. ‘ _I need to bury him_ ,’ she thought. But she couldn’t, not yet. She stumbled her way down the path she vaguely remembered, praying to any holy figure above that something, anything, anyone, was left.

Codsworth’s voice startled her out of her dazed mind, and she collapsed on her doorstep sobbing as the robot gently patted her shoulder, his voice rambling about everything that had happened since the bombs fell. 

‘ _200 years late_ ,’ she thought, his words going through her mind again. ‘ _I’ve been gone for so **long**_.’ A new wave of grief overtook her as she doubled over, tears starting anew as her stomach churned. Her parents, her sister, her two little brothers - it was unrealistic to expect all of them made it to shelter in time. Her sister, Madeline, maybe - but after 200 years, all she would have are descendants, and Erin wouldn’t matter to them. 

She was well and truly alone. 


	2. Back to Sanctuary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erin visits the Institute. 
> 
> She learns she really should've been careful what she wished for.

Erin had been gone for almost three weeks when the transmitter relay began sparking again shortly after sunrise, the dias beginning to whirl in anticipation of an arrival. Sturges bolted for the machinery, working frantically at the control console, trying to keep it from smoking or overworking itself on the rudimentary pieces keeping it together. Preston kept as many people back as he could as the machine drew the curiosity of the entire settlement. 

Nick and Piper stood at the forefront, unsure if they were there to help Erin as she’d step away from the machine or to help with the crowd. MacCready was off to their right, one hand on Dogmeat’s collar so he wouldn’t immediately leap to his owner. 

Less than a minute later, a blindingly bright blue flash startled them all, and Erin’s form was silhouetted against it. Piper began to step forward to greet her, only to be held back by Nick’s arm in front of her. Erin stepped forward, and when they finally got a good look at her in the early morning light, Piper knew something was seriously wrong.

Erin looked cleaner than they’d ever seen anyone in the Commonwealth look, but her frame was even thinner than when she’d left Sanctuary those few weeks ago. The hope she’d carried in her infectious smile was gone, lips a thin line with hardened eyes, her cheekbones standing out even more than normal with the weight she’d lost. 

“Erin?” Piper asked cautiously. The crowd behind her was hushed, almost afraid of what Erin was going to say. “Did you find him?”

Erin looked at the reporter, her recently bright green eyes now dull and cold; Piper wasn’t sure her best friend was even really seeing her. She didn’t say a word, and simply marched forward straight past Piper and Nick and through the crowd as she made her way to her pre-war house. “Erin?”

“Leave her be,” Nick said, voice calm, but Piper had worked with him enough to know it was a front. “Give her a little time.”

Dogmeat whined loudly, pulling hard at MacCready’s grip, and he shushed the German shepherd before kneeling down, saying something, and releasing him. He immediately sped off to catch up with Erin, ears flat as he trotted next to her. Surprisingly, she didn’t send him off as she stepped into the house. 

Her gathered friends dispersed the crowd, convincing everyone to get back to their assigned work so they could have something like a feast to welcome Erin back to Sanctuary, if they could get her to be responsive. An uncomfortable silence blanketed the settlement for the next few hours, the only noises the occasional whir of Codsworth’s blade taking care of the vegetables and Diamond City Radio crackling through the central radio. 

Nick hadn’t noticed Dogmeat coming up to him until the dog clamped his jaws as gently as he could around the synth’s arm, pulling him towards Erin’s home insistently. He looked around for Piper, but with her nowhere to be found, he hollered for MacCready to follow him in case he needed a second pair of hand. If Dogmeat thought something bad was happening to his human, then something worse was probably going on. 

“Erin?” he called out as they entered the house. The sound of wood splintering from the back right bedroom gave her location away, as did her colorful swearing. The two men froze in the doorway, watching as she took a sledgehammer to every piece of furniture she’d painstakingly rebuilt for Shaun’s room, tears streaming down her face as she swore in a language neither of them understood. “Erin, what the hell are you doing?”

She stopped after a blow to the dresser, looking up at Nick with red-rimmed eyes, fury written in every feature of her freckled face. “What the fuck does it look like I’m doing?” 

“Isn’t your kid gonna need that sh-stuff?” MacCready asked, stepping sideways around Nick to enter the room. The detective would’ve said he sounded cautious. “Little kids need beds and toys, destroying all this won’t help once you get him back.”

Nick didn’t know how he’d read her so well, considering as far as he knew they hadn’t known each other long, but he watched as Erin dropped the hammer, and would have fallen to her knees had MacCready not caught her by the arms. She pushed at his chest, but he didn’t loosen his grip. 

“It doesn’t matter!” she yelled, hands now curled into fists in MacCready’s duster. “It doesn’t fucking matter, none of it fucking does!”

Nick quietly crouched next to them, running his good hand through her hair as Dogmeat curled up on her other side, nosing her hip. “What happened, Erin?”

Eyes still squeezed shut and face partially buried in MacCready’s shoulder, she told them everything. “I got there, and they were expecting me. Father, the Director of the Institute, he knew we’d started tapping into their frequency days before I got there, and led me through to this room, and there he was, there was my boy, in this little glass cell, reading some science book. I thought this was it, that I could finally help him and get some of my life back, but he - that wasn’t Shaun, Nick. That little boy that Kellogg was escorting, that wasn’t - that Shaun is a _synth_.” 

He almost wanted to flinch at how much hatred she laced into that one word, all things considered, but he knew this was her emotions talking. She wouldn’t be working with the Railroad and feeding them inside information from the Brotherhood of Steel if she hated synths. MacCready had shifted to wrap an arm around her shoulder as Nick kept his hand on her head. 

“Then - then Father walked through that goddamned door, and I - it was like looking at Nate all over again, the same olive skin, the same curve of his nose, just - so, so much older. Shaun, my Shaun, _my son_ , he’s - they _took_ him from me and they made him into them, and now he’s the reason so many people have suffered. My boy’s the one running the whole show.”

“What?” If he had eyebrows, they’d be raised in disbelief. There was no way her original cryo period had been interrupted long enough ago for her son to be elderly. “That can’t be right. He must have been lying to you.” 

Erin shook her head as much as she could. “I was a lawyer, Nick, I know when someone’s lying to me. And he - I don’t have a common eye color. Shaun developed it when he was a few months old, and they were - they were the exact same shade as mine. That’s my boy, I’d know him anywhere.” 

Nick felt out of his depth; a missing person, he could tackle, he could track a case better than almost anyone, but this? He had no idea how to help a grieving mother. He never was good with the emotional aftermaths; that was always Ellie’s thing.

“What happened after that? How did you get out?” MacCready asked softly, voice kinder than Nick had expected. Nick’s surprise at his tone must have shown since the mercenary glared at him in response. He vaguely remembered MacCready mentioning he had a kid back in the Capital Wasteland, and suddenly things made a lot more sense. 

“He apologized. He - he was the one who ordered me to be released from cryostasis, he wanted - he thought it was a waste to let me be frozen forever.” She swallowed hard, voice hiccuping. “I don’t know whether that’s supposed to be good or not. I asked him to leave with me, I begged him to come here with me, and he was just - he’s so detached. He doesn’t see the Commonwealth as anything worth saving. All the lives here, everything people have rebuilt, the resilience of humanity - none of it matters to him. I’m the only thing he had an interest in above ground, and I don’t think that was a compliment.”

She sniffled and sat up, but MacCready’s grip didn’t leave her, instead shifting to her elbows as she straightened her back. Dogmeat immediately put his head in her lap, pushing against her stomach as she scratched between his ears. “I asked him why they took him,” she continued, voice quieter than before. “The Institute wanted pure DNA - untouched by radiation - so that they could make more progress with their synth production. And they found Vault-Tec’s records, discovered Vault 111 was a cryo vault with a listed infant, and they took him.” 

“You’re a walking, talking Institute horror story,” Nick muttered darkly. She didn’t argue his point. “They ran Vault-Tec?”

“No,” she replied, “but they had a deal with CIT to do experiments, and that’s directly what the Institute is under. Anyway, once Shaun was old enough to handle the tests, they started sequencing his DNA, and it ended up spliced into every generation-3 synth out there, maybe even some of the gen-2′s.”

“Holy, what? You’re serious?” MacCready said, brow furrowed. “That’s fu-seriously messed up.”

“You’re telling me,” she smiled sarcastically. “Congrats, Nick, we might be related. I’m the grandmother to almost every synth the Railroad rescues. Can’t wait to tell Deacon, he’ll never let me live it down.”

“I don’t think you should be saying that a lot right now, doll,” Nick replied, ignoring her comments. “You’ve had enough of a day as it is. We’ll clean up in here, alright? Go get some sleep.”

Erin exhaled sharply, still shaky as she wrapped her arms around herself before nodding. MacCready helped her stand and she wandered into the other bedroom clutching at Dogmeat’s fur, not that he minded.

Nick lit a cigarette as soon as she left the room before offering one to MacCready, who took it with a nod of thanks. He started bundling up the pieces of wood strewn about the room thanks to Erin’s chaos, suddenly wishing she’d thought to put a trash bin in the room.

“We’re not mentioning this to anyone outside of us,” MacCready said, voice uncharacteristically stern. Nick raised an invisible eyebrow at him as the shorter man took a drag of his cigarette. “I mean it. She’s been through enough.”

“Didn’t peg you as the protective type, MacCready,” Nick replied coolly. “You don’t have to worry, I wouldn’t do something that could even potentially upset her.”

“Good.” He started breaking more of the larger pieces down so they could be re-purposed later.  

“I have to ask, MacCready,” Nick started, “why do you of all people give a shit?”

MacCready laughed, but it was humorless. “People really don’t think much of me beyond my gun, huh?” He stamped out his cigarette before turning to Nick. “I don’t know what she saw in me, man, I really don’t. But she trusted me when she shouldn’t have, she’s done more for me - for this whole Commonwealth - than people who’ve lived here their entire da-dang lives.” He slipped his cap off and ran a frustrated hand through his hair as he talked. “We’ve both lost a lot. She’s done more for me than I can repay her for, so I’ll do whatever I can to help her. And if that means protecting her from her friends gossiping, I’ll do it.”

They stared at each other for a long moment before Nick smiled at him. “I think we’re gonna get along just fine here, kid. You got nothin’ to worry about from me, she’s tackled my demons, too.”

They quietly finished picking up what they could, glancing in her bedroom to check on her before the left the house. She was curled up on her side away from them, arm wrapped around Dogmeat’s neck as his rested across her neck, ears perking up as the floorboards creaked under them. 

Tomorrow would be a new monster, and Nick knew they’d have Piper to placate; she’d be a worried mess. But it wasn’t a problem for right now, and neither were about to make her deal with anything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I get so frustrated that you can't react to anything?? Like how is seeing all that happened not emotionally devastating. How.


End file.
